Monterey Peninsula Water Management District general manager Dave Stoldt laid out the details of preparing for a potential public buyout of California American Water’s local water system under district policy, established by Measure J, before a full house at Pacific Grove City Hall on Thursday.

The fourth of five such listening sessions around the Peninsula with the district board in attendance also invited public comment on the feasibility criteria for such an undertaking as part of the district’s public outreach effort, which Stoldt said have drawn about 300 attendees and 68 speakers at venues in four of the district’s five zones including Seaside, district headquarters in Ryan Ranch, Monterey and Pacific Grove.

A fifth session is set for Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the Sunset Center’s Carpenter Hall in Carmel. Newly chosen mayoral district board representative Dave Potter, who served on the board for more than a decade as the county supervisorial representative, is expected to attend that session.

Thursday night’s public testimony ran the gamut from public buyout supporters arguing that getting rid of Cal Am and its profit incentive for local control of the water supply would be worth higher rates and deferred savings decades into the future to opponents suggesting the only real measure of feasibility is immediate savings from lower rates and warned that is not a likely scenario with so many variables.

Stoldt told Thursday night’s crowd the public buyout process is complex and there are many different definitions of feasibility, and the district is committed to seeking public input both before and after it hires a team of consultants to develop a cost analysis and produces a written acquisition plan the district board will ultimately use to decide whether to proceed with a public buyout effort.

A public buyout includes a three-step process, Stoldt said, including a feasibility analysis, a right to take bench trial and a valuation jury trial. Feasibility concepts, he said, range from an objective rate impact cost analysis to doability or whether it can be done (he said district staff believes so) and desirability or whether it is in the public interest. Measures of feasibility are also important to evaluate, including how soon ratepayers would want to see savings and the value of public participation, and elected board and local control, he said.

Stoldt also covered the process of determining financial feasibility under various valuation and purchasing methods, additional costs beyond the water system’s assets including the expense of setting up a new management system — which he acknowledged is difficult to estimate now — and other details. Experts who will be required as part of the public buyout effort include a valuation specialist, an investor-owned utility expert, an eminent domain attorney, an investment banker and bond counsel, he said.

In an example evaluation based on the current situation versus an alternative ownership scenario, Stoldt said he found that if the Cal Am system could be purchased for $400 million at 4 percent interest over 30 years that ratepayers would see an immediate reduction in their water bills. He cautioned that doesn’t include acquiring the proposed Cal Am desalination plant or any other additional water supply — which district ratepayers will need and will end up paying for, but he said chances are there would be a similar result except with a higher valuation number.

According to Stoldt, the selection of a consultant team is expected to occur by the end of February, after the district board sets its criteria, with final reports due on July 26 and a written plan due by Aug. 27. He told The Herald only the aspects of the consultants’ reports that won’t affect “future litigation strategy” would be made publicly available, perhaps when the written plan is released. He also said the district expects to conduct additional public outreach after the written plan is released so it could be months before the district board makes a decision on how to proceed.